I am considering a second PDA. My first one still works, sort of; but the screen is so scratched up it dosent funtion properly when using the Grafiti writing mode. The first unit is a PalmPilot Personal, (Old huh?). Anyway, it has more than enough capacity for my needs, with its limited memory, I only had it about 1/3 full.

My problem is that the basic palm pilots out there lack a backlight, which I found invaluable on my old unit. Also I dont care for the new color screens. I have a color screen on my cell phone, and I found that to be a big mistake. It adds zero value to the functionality of the unit, and now I have a cell phone that has to be recharged every other day, even If I dont use it on any calls.

Speaking of charging....The old unit took 2 AAA batteries, they lasted a long, long time, and were easy to replace. I never lost data replacing batteries. Now the makers are designing in planned obsolecense, with rechargeable Li-ION batteries that cannot be replaced. Eventually these power cells will no longer hold a charge. Does anyone make a basic PDA that takes AAA batteries anymore?

My finial issue: Reliablity. I was almost resigned to buying a Palm Tungsten E, and resigning myself to having to recharge the batteries and an inneficient color screen. Then I started reading numberous posts on varioius reveiw sites about many problems with this unit, even more problems with the low end Zire series; etc. etc. This coupled with Palm's paltry 3 month warranty and poor customer service have scared me away from the Palm brand altogheter.

I have considered buying a used Palm V or Vx from an Amazon reseller or eBay; however concerns about software compatablity and sycnronizing the contacs list with outlook on my Windows XP desktop PC have tempered this.

My old Palm Pilot was reliable, I put it through hell in an industrial work enviroment, dropped it in gravel more than once etc. and it kept on going. From what I'm reading, this kind of reliability is not being built into todays' PDA's. Yes/No?